xetex and tikz fadings dont work

Question

Here is the following siple code

\begin{tikzpicture}

\fill[black] (0,0) rectangle (8,1);
\fill[white,fading=west] (0,0) rectangle (8,1);

\end{tikzpicture}

i use it with the following library \usetikzlibrary{fadings} but it won't compile and i get the following message:

Package pgf Warning: Your graphic driver pgfsys-xetex.def does not support fadi
ngs. This warning is given only once on input line 31.

Any clues?

Answer 1

The answer provided by @JosephWright above is accurate: fadings are not supported by the XeTeX graphic driver. That is, if you are using some sort of fading in your code (a drop shadow for example), it will probably be rendered by XeTeX, but it won't look as good as TikZ intended it to look.

I always compile through PostScript (DviPs) because I also use some PostScript features (pstricks, etc.) in my documents, so I get the same warning (pgfsys-dvips.def instead of pgfsys-xetex.def). Compiling the code below...

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{fadings}

\begin{document}

\begin{tikzpicture}[scale=4, every node/.style={scale=4}]
 \node[circle,fill=white,draw=black,thick,
       preaction={
         fill=black,opacity=.3,
         path fading=circle with fuzzy edge 20 percent,
         transform canvas={xshift=3mm,yshift=-3mm}
       }] (1) at (0,0) {1};
\end{tikzpicture}

\end{document}

... yields the following results :

Since there are situations in which this warning message cannot be avoided, I suggest hiding it using the silence package, as shown in the example below:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{silence}
  %% Filter all warning messages from package pgf starting with "Your graphic driver"
  \WarningFilter{pgf}{Your graphic driver}

\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{fadings}

\begin{document}

\begin{tikzpicture}[scale=4, every node/.style={scale=4}]
 \node[circle,fill=white,draw=black,thick,
       preaction={
         fill=black,opacity=.3,
         path fading=circle with fuzzy edge 20 percent,
         transform canvas={xshift=3mm,yshift=-3mm}
       }] (1) at (0,0) {1};
\end{tikzpicture}

\end{document}

This will not make the fading look better when compiled through XeTeX, but it will remove the warning.